Ok, I haven't written since October. I discovered that my blog entries were not visible or accessible and I have not yet learned why or how to correct it. I am hoping that will change after I take the workshop on blogging offered by the Nebraska Library Commission. My children are blogging on this site, and seem to be fluent in blog. Isn't that the way of things now?

You know how in the military, it's "hurry up and wait?" Well, in tribal colleges it is "Wait..., wait..., wait..., wait..., HURRY UP!" Two weeks ago, the boss told us there were data forms that needed to be filled out that were due Friday Oct. 27. I asked for the forms for the library right away. Last Friday I got an urgent message saying that the forms were due and needed to be finished by Oct. 27! I asked for the forms again. One is a quantitative data form, the other is a qualitative evaluation form. The Interim Prez asked that all the administrators meet at 2:00 every day this week so we can all work on filling out the forms. He promised me that if I came to this meeting, someone would give me the library forms, so I went. I still do not have any of the forms.

Today one of our staff is AWOL. No call, no show. The other one tried to call in sick, but realizing we were desperately short-handed, came in anyway. She should have called in dead! Neither one of us is burning up the track today. First thing this morning the GED teacher (lovely lady!) reported that the bathrooms were out of paper towels. I gave her the keys to the storeroom. She came back up to report we were out. I told her where to find supplies in the main building. She came back loaded like Santa Claus with toilet paper, paper towels, etc., in a trash bag slung over her back. I gave her the key again. A short time later she came back up saying there was no key to get into the towel dispensers. I told her where the key was and gave her my keys for a third time. In a few minutes she came back up to return my keys.

When I opened the upstairs I turned on the public access catalog computer and found that it had not been shut down completely on Friday. Shutting it off and back on is a pain in the booty! It is in a locked cabinet, so one must remember to bring the key or go back downstairs to the office and get it, unlock everything, turn it on or off, then lock it back up and return the key to the office drawer. I must remember to find out how important it is to turn it off every Friday, and then tell whoever shuts down on Friday afternoon to do it.

The library is full of kids on the computers, so I am trying to do the computer shuffle (timing the people who are on a computer, letting them know when their time is up and negotiating the next user to the right computer). I am trying to download and print catalog records for 50 Codes of Federal Regulations. Nat is trying to print overdue notices and envelopes. There is a slight conflict. The printer is spitting out envelopes with catalog records on them and plain paper with addresses. Heeheeheeheee!

My desk is piled high with compost heaps. Once in a while I turn them over and start from the other end. I have items to order for the Knowledge Challenge--preparation for the contests at the Spring Conference of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). There is cuff accounting to do and catalogs to go through. I have to prepare the next book order. I must document all the time I spend on our various grant activities. And I have a stack of mail on my desk from way last week that needs to be dealt with.

A young boy with a $20.00 fine wants to know how many hours he would have to read to pay off his fine. (4.25 hrs.)

No responses from our ad for a new children's librarian yet.

And that is my day so far. I still have 3 hrs to go, though, so there could be some excitement yet!

It's Sunday night. I am trying to think of what I need to do this week. I have a couple of appointments, a couple of meetings, and need to continue to get ready for the grant. Oh, didn't I tell you? We were awarded a $129,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Last week I sent requests for proposals to four different library supply houses for a microform reader/scanner, a map case, and a storage cabinet for microforms. Also a 27" TV because we are going to have video games here. Thursday nights will be girls night when we will do Dance, Dance Revolution.

We're also going to get a Dungeons and Dragons group going. They are all legit literacy activities, and besides it will bring kids into the library.

I hate meetings. Especially hate administrative meetings. Bad things happen at administrative meetings. Thankfully there won't be another one till a week from Thursday. I have a whole week free, Free, FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!

One think I have to do is start working on grant reports. They are all due Oct. 31. Reports are due on the tribal appropriation, the Basic Library Grant and the final narrative and performance reports on the last IMLS grant we got in 2003. We just wrapped that one up after a one-year extension. That was a two-year grant for $141,000.

I still have quite a bit of cataloging to do on those #$&*! electronic government documents! I suppose I won't be able to postpone working on those this week. LOL

Today I had at least two things with fires under them. Had to get my vacation request approved (requires two signatures) before the end of today, meet with the Dean, and get my appropriation request finalized. Ok, that was three things. There are a few purchase orders to write, a little cuff accounting to do, and then maybe, just maybe--I can do some cataloging. Library work is like housekeeping; it's never done. Cataloging is my reward for getting those nasty administrative chores done. I LOVE cataloging! It's probably because I have such a high need for completion, and cataloging is one of those few tasks that I can point to and say, "That's done." In addition to that, it's a job I can do alone. It's not that I don't like people, but being an introvert, alone time recharges my batteries.

Tonight is Gamer's Night in the library. Once a week we turn over the computer lab to the kids who play online role-playing games. At other times, it is strictly an adult and college student place. There are about 5 or 6 boys who play on any given night. Adults are welcome in the lab during gaming, but they have to be quiet! LOL

Tuesday was fun. I asked two of my colleagues from nearby towns to come as consultants and do some evaluating. Both named Kathy, one was to evaluate programs, and one was to evaluate the children's and youth collections. They both had good things to say. The youth and kids' collections just need to have series-es (is there such a word, or what is the plural of series?) filled out and completed. She recommended a few priorities, based on her experience, and said it was an excellent collection and she wouldn't know what to weed out of it. The program evaluator has not submitted her report yet, but she said that we were doing remarkable work with little money and few resources. Her mouth dropped when I told her that we have no budget at all for programming. They made a little extra money, and I got to finish spending out my $1,000 grant for professional development. Since we are old friends as well, we had a good time catching up with each other. We have all served on the board of the Northeast Library System at one time or another.

In my mail today was a request for a letter of recommendation from one of our recent work-study kids that I like and respect. It was a pleasure to write it. I have to do that fairly frequently.

I made 10 signs to post in the library saying "NO SUNFLOWER SEEDS, PLEASE!" and put them up all over the library.

There were two groups who met in the library today, and I fielded questions from attendees about where the groups were located, where the restrooms were, and could they use the phone.

One of the high school teachers at the public school brought two different classes of seniors who were writing research papers to our library. I sweat gumdrops trying to find materials for 15 kids who all had different topics, and the public access catalog refused to connect to the server! I had to do it all at my own desk. Being alone in the library, I couldn't really go with the kids to help them find the books either. But they all left with books or other resources, all checked out to the teacher, who will be responsible for returning them. The school kids must be getting smarter. It used to be that I had to teach them everything, but this group were quite independent, once I showed them how to use the system. Some even went beyond that and explored our online databases on their own. Wow! Somebody is teaching them information skills! Yowza!!!!!!!

A couple of vacation days is just what the doc ordered for me! See you all when I get back from Minnesota.

Today, I spent an hour and a half shelving children's books. I did one shelf in all that time! For every book I put in place, I found three more that were out of place. Once a book is out of place on the shelf, we might just as well not have it, because we'll NEVER EVER find it again. Plus if we're not careful, pretty soon we'll have two alphabets going, as the next shelver puts books after the misplaced one.

At 10:00, I had the first classroom of Head Start kids, about 8 of them, come into the library. They were great fun! I smiled for the whole half hour. I started reading board books about mommies and daddies and they kind of wandered off in search of something interesting. They were like corn popping in a frypan without a lid. Then I started reading "The Big Green Monster" and they crowded so close to me that I couldn't turn pages! Then they asked for it again, so we did it again! Then they asked for it yet again! By that time, they were practically chanting the words with me. After they left there was clean up to do. More books to put away. One of the books I was reading to them disappeared. We don't think it walked out with the kids, so someone probably stuck it somewhere. That will be one of the ones we will never find again!

Back in my office after that, I worked on a bookmark we give to students and others who inquire. It is ready for publication. Wrote an e-mail to the staff asking for volunteers to print it out. Because it contains passwords to our databases, I cannot show it here, but it has our logo, hours, holidays, and a list of the subscription databases we have through the courtesy of the Nebraska Library Commission.

An instructor brought me produce from her garden, told me a story about the suit she was wearing, and we talked about what I am going to do for her students on Friday.

Checking my e-mail, I found that the Institute of Museum and Library Services had published the list of grantees. Since we had submitted a proposal last May, I checked their web site, and found our name on the list! We got our grant! $129,000 for a children's librarian, some equipment to store, display and view maps and microforms, and a TV and game system for the youth area. Well, not wanting to keep the good news to myself, I quick-like-a-bunny e-mailed the library staff and administration of the college to give them the good news.

Lunch, then another, larger (15) group of kids from Head Start. These kids were a little older--4-year-olds--and they were used to listening to stories, so I had their attention for a little bit with the mommy-daddy thing. When I started to read "The Big Green Monster," I had the same result as before. We read it three times and after each page they chorused "EWwwwwwwwwwwwww!", then we shouted the last page together. (AND DON'T COME BACK!!!!!) They had a good time, and I'm sure we'll see them again.

Telephone call from a person who wanted to reserve our downstairs for dance practice. Many Moccasins is a Native American dance troupe made up of youth in junior high and high school. They have practiced in our downstairs open area many times. It is always fun to have them.

I called a colleague to invite her to help us with collection evaluation. She was tickled to accept. She has not seen our new library and has wanted an excuse to do that. After the phone call, I found mileage for her from her town to ours, and mileage for the other consultant, calculated their mileage and fees and sent it to them so they can invoice me for the evaluations. Wrote an e-mail to the two of them explaining the situation and asking them to talk to each other about setting a date. No need for them both to come on one day, but it would be more fun!

More e-mails to take care of. Trying to get 6 people together for a meeting tomorrow, Friday or .... ????

The main floor public access catalog computer is on the blink. Needs a new motherboard. Phone calls to tech support, communicate with staff about it.

Kids start coming in. We have 6 public access computers that go to the Internet. There is heavy competition for them. Often we have 4-5 kids clustered around one computer. It's a good problem to have. I am alone on the main floor. There is another staff member here but her office is on the lower level in the lab. She has customers, so can't come up to help out. Another staff member is coming in at 6:00. There are 14 children ages 8-14 in the library right now, and a few assorted adolescents and adults. I step out of my office 4 times in a half hour to remind kids that we don't have food or drink near the computers.

I am doing the "computer shuffle" as Alvin likes to call it. Due to the high demand, we can give kids only 1/2 hr. of computer time. There are people signed up on a waiting list. We have to monitor kids' computer time, ask kids to finish up, notify kids that a computer is open, and keep the dance going. Remind everyone to sign out when they leave.

There are children wandering around upstairs. That's an area reserved for adults. Kids under 12 need an adult or staff escort to be up there. Otherwise, since there are no staff assigned to that area, they play hide and seek, chase, push the books off the shelf, pull security targets out of books, and other destructive games. I go up one staircase, they run down the other.

A child tells me that she put her returns in the outdoor drop box over the weekend and wants me to check to see if they have been checked in. Smile. They haven't. Smile. I ask Alvin if anyone checked the drop box today, he doesn't know. I get the keys to the drop box from a locked draw at the circulation desk. I check. Yup, her books are there. I take them inside, and check them in. Smile and tell the child her books are checked in.

I sit back down to get to work on a report I'm trying to finish for the Board of Trustees. Another child comes and wants to pay for printing. Smile. I get up, put her dime in our cash box in the same locked drawer, make the proper notation on the income ledger, and lock the drawer again. Back at my desk, I type one sentence, and another kid comes in and asks to use a computer. She has already had her half hour, so I apologize, but can't give her more time. She's a timid soul. Smile. Back to the report, I have to check one of the drives on the network for the reports of the two other staffers.

A child has gotten one of the puppets down and is harassing another kid with it. I ask him to please put it back. He does. I smile. My face aches from smiling. I am tired of being nice. I am no extrovert!!! It's 5:30, and a few of the kernels of popcorn have left the library and things are settling down a bit. Sigh! A child wants to know if she has any overdue books. I check. She does. I smile. I explain that there are three ways for her to pay her fine. She can read it off, work it off, or pay it off. Smile. I check the computer list while I'm up. There are two kids with fine balances. I go tell them they cannot use a computer till their balances are paid. Smile! Sorry, I say. And I am. Really! While I'm up I tidy up the children's area from the Head Start story time. More books to put away. Smile.

A kid falls off one of the computer chairs on wheels. I go to see if he is hurt. Not. Smile. Natalie will be here soon. I try to work on the report. Closing is only 2 1/2 hours away! Whew!!! (Wipes perspiration from forehead.) Although I hosed off this morning, I smell like 6-week-old gym socks.

It is Natalie's turn to do library displays this month. She is doing something with harvests--human, bird and animal. She is studying ethnobotany, so she is including plants in her display. It should be very nice.

I try to finish my report. And that is a day in the life of the library lady.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. If you have ever thought that the life of a librarian was pretty soft, what with all that reading they get to do, this blog's for you!

I have been a library director at a small community college since 1994, but was a volunteer for three years before that. It is not my first career. In fact most librarians start out as something else, and fall into librarianship by accident, as I did. The ones who set out to be librarians from the first usually get into it because they love books and reading, and then find out it is a people job. Surprise, surprise!

Librarian humor is not funny to anyone else. Maybe it's because hardly anyone knows what we do. -- Do you know how many librarians it takes to change a light bulb? Only one, but she has to check with the Library of Congress to see how it is done. See?? That's what I mean.

What I am going to write about is how daily life unfolds for a librarian. I hope you enjoy it.